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Cape
Town - Drastic action, including the possible tracking of each and every police
firearm in South Africa, could be introduced to try and prevent cop guns from
being smuggled to criminals.

A national audit of all firearms
at police stations is also on the cards.

In the Western Cape, where gang
violence is surging and where a total of 33 firearms recently went missing from
two police stations, gun audits will be conducted.

This is likely to involve all of
the province’s 151 police stations.

Gun audits

“It is correct indeed that there
are going to be firearm audits taking place in the Western Cape,” national
police spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo told News24 on Tuesday.

“We will communicate duly should
this take place in other parts of the country.”

Police minister Fikile Mbalula’s
spokesman Vuyo Mhaga on Tuesday told News24 a national audit of police guns
would be logical.

“We need to look at how we can
preserve the law and trace our firearms,” he said.

Mhaga said ideas, including a
tracking system whereby every single police gun could be pinpointed at any
time, would be looked at.

The Hawks are investigating the
guns, crime exhibits as well as state-issued, that recently went missing from
two police stations in Cape Town.

News24 understands this forms
part of a massive investigation into the illicit firearms trade in South
Africa.

For
details on the national gun smuggling probe and how it fits into what has been
happening in the underworld, see News24’s showcase Underworld Unmasked here.

It is understood this Hawks-headed
probe includes investigating how some private security companies are illegally
getting hold of firearms, how guns are being smuggled into and out the country,
as well as trying to trace firearms which have been used in underworld violence
said to be spreading from Cape Town to Johannesburg.

This Hawks probe now includes
investigators from a previous gun smuggling investigation - which started
breaking the back of a gun smuggling syndicate involving police helping to get
firearms to gangsters - which disintegrated.

That initial probe was allegedly
affected by divisions within the police.

Mbalula on Monday admitted that
the 33 guns that recently went missing from two Cape Town police stations have
likely ended up in the hands of gangsters.

These were the very crimes the
previous police probed focused on.

Leaked
recording and video footage

At the end of August News24
reported that guns had gone missing from the storeroom of the Bellville South
station.

Bellville South is a stronghold
of the Sexy Boys gang, who are heavily involved in underworld activities.

In a leaked recording, from a
source with close ties to policing and about what possibly happened to the
firearms, it is claimed members of the police’s stabilisation unit booked out
20 R5 rifles in Bellville.

News24 has distorted the source's
voice in the recording in order to protect the source's identity.

In the recording, the source says unit members had moved around and at one
point “forgot” the weapons, which had been in a container and which were
allegedly now on the streets.

Deputy national commissioner of
policing Lieutenant General Sehlahle Masemola, during a police portfolio
committee meeting in Parliament about two weeks ago, said there was video
footage of the Bellville South incident.

Guns recently also went missing
from the Mitchells Plain police station - which is another area plagued by gang
violence.

Maswemola, in his address in
Parliament, said pistols had been booked out by members.

However, these
pistols were now missing.

In his statement on Monday, Mbalula
said 33 firearms – 18 of which were
handed in as exhibits and 15 which were state issued - were unaccounted for.

“In the main, it is these guns that end up in the hands of gangsters, who
daily torment our people, and destroy the lives of many young people.” he said.

“What cannot be tolerated is
violence sponsored from within the police ranks.

“The people of South Africa,
particular in Cape Town are already plagued by ugly scenes of gang violence and
other serious crimes where innocent people including children get killed on a
regular basis.”

In one of the most recent
incidents, nine-year-old Aqeel Davids was caught in apparent gang crossfire in
his Ocean View home on September 9. He was wounded and later died in hospital.

Project
Impi

The previous national gun
smuggling investigation, said to have been the biggest in South Africa, was
named Project Impi.

It had established that at least
261 children were murdered or wounded, between 2010 and 2016, with guns which
were smuggled from within the police to gangsters.

About 1 200 of these guns are
believed to still be in circulation on the streets.

Project Impi was launched in
December 2013 by Western Cape police officers Major General Jeremy Vearey and
Major General Peter Jacobs.

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